There are somewhere north of three thousand bars in London, and most of them are fine. Fine is not what you are looking for on a Thursday night with one evening to spend. This is the shortlist: the bars we actually go back to, sorted by what you want the night to be rather than by postcode.
A note before the list. London bars divide into two camps that rarely overlap: the hotel bars, which are formal, expensive and almost always worth it, and the independents, which are cheaper, harder to get into and where the drinks are often better. We have included both. Where a place does not take reservations, we have said so, because turning up at nine to a two hour wait is its own kind of evening.
Checked in September 2026, rechecked 28 September
Tayer + Elementary is still shut. Its own site still carries the fire notice and it is running pop-ups elsewhere while it is closed, with updates on Instagram rather than the website. Do not travel to Old Street for it.
Three sets of hours were confirmed exactly. The Connaught Bar is Monday to Saturday 4pm to 1am with no Sunday service at all and a published no-reservations policy. The American Bar at The Savoy is Monday to Saturday midday to midnight and Sunday midday to 10pm, with a published 14+ age restriction; it opened in 1893 and has been serving since. Dukes Bar opens at 3pm and still pours the martinis tableside.
One addition. Dukes has a second room worth knowing about: the Delany Drawing Room, which the hotel says holds one of London’s finest whisky collections and has a garden attached, which is a rare thing in St James’s.
If you want the best drink in London
Connaught Bar, Mayfair
Still the benchmark, and still worth the money. The martini trolley comes to the table, you choose your gin and your bitters, and it is made in front of you with a theatricality that should be annoying and somehow is not. You cannot book, whatever else you have read: the hotel’s own page states a no reservation policy. Go early if you want to hear yourself think, and expect Mayfair hotel prices, which is to say the mid twenties and up for a drink.
Connaught Bar
- Address
- The Connaught, Carlos Place, Mayfair, W1K 2AL
- Nearest
- Bond Street or Green Park
- Hours
- Monday to Saturday 4pm to 1am. Sunday hours are not published
- Booking
- No reservations taken
- Standing
- Repeatedly ranked the best bar in the world
How to get in
No reservations, so the only lever you have is the hour you arrive. Four o’clock to six is a quiet room and a seat at the bar. After nine on a Thursday or Friday you are queueing for one.
Tayēr + Elementary, Old Street
Two rooms, two moods. Elementary at the front is standing room, fast, and does an excellent job of making a complicated drink in ninety seconds. Tayēr at the back is the serious one, seated, more expensive, and among the most technically interesting bars in Europe. Go to the front on the way somewhere. Go to the back if the bar itself is the evening. Check before you travel: their site says the bar is temporarily closed after a fire in the building.
Tayer + Elementary Temporarily closed
- Address
- 152 Old Street, EC1V 9BW
- Nearest
- Old Street
- Hours
- Temporarily closed at the time of writing
- Booking
- No bookings, walk in only
- Standing
- Standing at the front, seated at the back
How to get in
Still closed after a fire in the building, with updates and the pop ups they are running elsewhere posted to their Instagram rather than their site. The standing policy when open is walk in only, with no bookings of any kind.
Satan’s Whiskers, Bethnal Green
A menu that changes daily, taxidermy on the walls, and hip hop loud enough that conversation takes effort. It has been Bethnal Green’s neighbourhood cocktail bar since 2013 and is reliably some of the best drink making in the city at roughly half a Mayfair price. It does take reservations, but only by telephone, and it takes walk-ins as well. Ring ahead on a Friday.
Satan’s Whiskers
- Address
- 343 Cambridge Heath Road, Bethnal Green, E2 9RA
- Nearest
- Bethnal Green or Cambridge Heath
- Hours
- Sunday to Thursday from 5pm till late, a little later on Friday and Saturday
- Booking
- 020 7739 8362, by telephone only
- Standing
- A neighbourhood bar with a menu rewritten daily
How to get in
Reservations are recommended but not essential by their own account, and walk ins are taken. The telephone is the only way to hold a table: no form, no app, and the email address is for everything else.
If you want to impress someone
Dukes Bar, St James’s
The martini here is made on a trolley, poured from bottles kept in the freezer, and is strong enough that the house has long held guests to two. That is not a gimmick, though it is not a policy they publish either. The room is small, quiet, wood panelled, and feels like a private club that has decided to let you in. Their published dress code is smart casual, which rules out sportswear, shorts and T-shirts but allows a polo shirt. The thing to plan around is the hour: last orders are at 10pm and the room closes at half past, which makes this a first drink and never a last one.
Dukes Bar
- Address
- Dukes London, 35 St James’s Place, SW1A 1NY
- Nearest
- Green Park
- Hours
- Monday to Saturday 3pm to 10pm, last orders at 10pm and the bar closes at 10.30pm. Sunday is not published
- Booking
- Walk in basis, no reservations
- Price
- Smart casual: no sportswear, shorts or T-shirts, though a short sleeved collared shirt is allowed
- Standing
- Martinis built at the table from bottles kept in the freezer
How to get in
Walk in only, and their own note is that there may be a short wait for a table at busy times. The early closing is the fact that catches people out: last orders at ten and the door shut by half past, so this is where an evening starts.
American Bar, The Savoy
One of the oldest surviving cocktail bars in the world, and it knows it. Live piano, white jackets, a menu that changes with an amount of ceremony. It is touristy in the early evening and much better after ten. Book ahead, or arrive at opening and take a seat at the bar itself, which is the best place to sit anyway.
American Bar at The Savoy
- Address
- The Savoy, Strand, WC2R 0EZ
- Nearest
- Charing Cross or Embankment
- Hours
- Monday to Saturday midday to midnight, Sunday midday to 10pm
- Booking
- Reservations through the hotel booking system
- Price
- No formal dress code, but guests are asked to dress elegantly. Sports jerseys are not permitted
- Standing
- One of the oldest surviving cocktail bars in the world
How to get in
It opens at midday, which nobody expects of a bar like this and which is the best hour to see the room. The Savoy publishes no formal dress code but asks for elegance and turns away sports jerseys, and the whole hotel is 14 and over.
Scarfes Bar, Holborn
Rosewood’s bar, named for the cartoonist whose work covers the walls. Fire lit in winter, live jazz most nights, deep armchairs, and a room that makes almost any conversation go better. Less of a scene than the Mayfair hotel bars and considerably easier to get into on short notice.
Scarfes Bar
- Address
- Rosewood London, 252 High Holborn, WC1V 7EN
- Nearest
- Holborn
- Hours
- Monday to Sunday from 4pm until late. They publish no closing time by day
- Booking
- Walk in, with tables held for an hour and a half. They take reservations only from hotel guests and parties of six or more
- Standing
- Named for the cartoonist Gerald Scarfe, whose work covers the walls
How to get in
A hotel bar in the Rosewood, open from four, and you do not need to be staying. It is the easiest room of this standard to get into at short notice, which is the entire reason to keep it in mind. The booking rule has changed and is worth knowing: they now take reservations only from people staying at the hotel and from parties of six or more. Everybody else walks in, and the table is yours for an hour and a half before they try to move you on.
If you want to find it yourself
Nightjar, Old Street
Down a staircase behind an unmarked door, live music seven nights, and a drinks list that runs to a small book. It has been doing the speakeasy thing since before every other bar in London tried it, and it is still the one that does it best. Book, because the walk-in queue is real.
Nightjar
- Address
- 129 City Road, EC1V 1JB
- Nearest
- Old Street
- Booking
- Walk ins taken, booking recommended. Groups up to 20 Sunday to Thursday, with a pre-order and a minimum spend
- Price
- A cover charge applies on live music nights and goes straight to the musicians
- Standing
- Live jazz, blues, swing and funk every night from 9pm
How to get in
Walk ins are accepted and booking is recommended, which in practice means the queue is real on music nights and music is every night. The cover is added to the bill rather than collected at the door, so arriving late does not avoid it.
Bar Termini, Soho
Thirty seats, an Italian counter, and a negroni that arrives pre-batched, correctly chilled, in the right glass, in under a minute. Tables turn quickly here by design, which is the appeal rather than a complaint: this is a bar for one excellent drink on the way to somewhere else, not a place to settle in for the evening.
Bar Termini
- Address
- 7 Old Compton Street, Soho, W1D 5JE
- Nearest
- Leicester Square or Tottenham Court Road
- Booking
- One hour slots, maximum five people
- Standing
- Thirty seats and a counter
How to get in
The booking is an hour and the largest party is five, and neither is negotiable: they say outright that booking two tables to sneak a group of more than six in is not on. Slots run from 4pm Monday to Thursday and from 3pm Friday to Sunday, and a late table is held for ten minutes. The negroni is batched and chilled in advance, which is why it arrives in under a minute and why the hour is enough.
Swift, Soho
Upstairs is quick and bright and does a very good pre-dinner drink. Downstairs is dark, low ceilinged, and has one of the better whisky lists in central London. Most people never make it past the ground floor, which is a mistake.
Swift Soho
- Nearest
- Tottenham Court Road or Leicester Square
- Booking
- Downstairs is reservations only, upstairs is mainly walk ins. Booking is online and they take no telephone calls about it at all
- Standing
- A whisky list running past three hundred bottles downstairs, and three bars now: Soho, Shoreditch and Borough
How to get in
The two floors run on different rules, which is the thing to know before you arrive. Upstairs takes walk ins and is built for speed. Downstairs is reservations only, in two hour slots on the hour from 5pm, or from 3pm in November and December, with six the largest party. Over 21s only, and no replica football shirts.
If you want to keep going
Coupette, Bethnal Green
French in temperament, calvados heavy, and open later than most of its neighbours. The apple martini here has almost nothing to do with the drink you are picturing and is the reason to come. A good third stop, and a short walk from Satan’s Whiskers if you are making a night of Bethnal Green rather than crossing town. There is now a second site on Moor Street in Soho.
Coupette
- Address
- 423 Bethnal Green Road, E2 0AN
- Nearest
- Bethnal Green
- Hours
- They no longer publish opening hours. What they do publish is live music every Thursday from 7.15pm and Le Studio on Sundays from 4pm
- Booking
- Their own Book Now link goes to an OpenTable page marked permanently closed, which the bar plainly is not, so use the contact form
- Standing
- A neighbourhood bar in Bethnal Green, with a second site at 9 Moor Street in Soho
How to get in
Their own site has stopped publishing opening hours, and the Book Now button sends you to an OpenTable listing that says permanently closed while the bar is posting live music dates and a New Year’s Eve party. Treat the booking route as broken and the bar as open. The apple martini is calvados based and has almost nothing to do with the drink the name suggests.
London is not the late city it thinks it is. Our closing time index puts 96 venues in order of when they actually stop, and only five are still serving after one in the morning. The bars hold most of the genuinely late rooms on that list.
Practical notes
Booking. Not all of them take one. The Connaught runs a no reservation policy and Dukes is walk in only, so for those two the lever is the hour rather than the booking. The Savoy and Scarfes both take reservations and you should use them, particularly Thursday to Saturday. Nightjar in particular is worth booking, because the walk-in queue is real. The east London independents are more relaxed about it, though Satan’s Whiskers will take a table over the phone if you think ahead.
Dress. Dukes publishes a smart casual code that rules out sportswear, shorts and T-shirts, and the Savoy asks for elegance and refuses sports jerseys. The Connaught publishes no code at all. Everywhere east of the City has no dress code worth worrying about.
Timing. Central London bars are at their worst between six and eight, when they fill with people finishing work. Either go before six or go after ten. The room is a different place at both ends.
What things cost. Budget the low to mid twenties for a cocktail in a Mayfair or St James’s hotel bar, and somewhere in the teens in Soho and Shoreditch. Prices move, so treat these as bands rather than quotes. Service is usually included in the hotel bars and usually is not elsewhere.
If cocktails specifically are the point of the evening rather than the room, we have a separate list of the best cocktail bars in London, which goes deeper on the drink making and lighter on the setting. For summer, and for anyone who has been told to find somewhere with a view, London’s rooftop bars is the one to read. And if the bar is the start of a longer night rather than the whole of it, London after dark covers where to go once the kitchens close.
If you would rather be taught something than simply served, wine tasting in London covers the guided sessions, the self-pour bars and what separates them, since the word is used for three very different evenings. For drinking rather than learning, the best wine bars in London is the separate list, and it exists because nobody else had written one: the search returns a booking directory filtered to Fenchurch Street and four forum threads.
And if the evening ends with a cigar, London’s cigar lounges explains why every one of them is a terrace rather than a room, and which are actually warm in winter.
The best bars in Soho narrows this to the half square mile with the densest drinking in Britain, where the question is never what is good but what you are choosing between.
Every cigar lounge in a London hotel or bar is a terrace, which is a matter of law rather than fashion, and the page explains why, along with the one kind of indoor room the law allows.
The Ned has the Nickel Bar, open from morning until the early hours with live music, and anyone can book it.
Questions we get asked
What is the best bar in London?
The Connaught Bar in Mayfair has been repeatedly ranked the best bar in the world. It is at The Connaught on Carlos Place, W1K 2AL, open Monday to Saturday 4pm to 1am, with Sunday hours not published. It takes no reservations of any kind, so the only lever you have is the hour you arrive.
Can you book a table at Dukes Bar or the Connaught?
No. Both are walk in only, and the Connaught states a no reservation policy on the hotel’s own page whatever you may have read elsewhere. Dukes notes there may be a short wait for a table at busy times. Scarfes Bar and the American Bar at The Savoy both take reservations through their hotel booking systems.
What time do London cocktail bars close?
Earlier than most people plan for. Dukes Bar runs 3pm to 10pm with last orders at 10pm and the room closing at 10.30pm, and Satan’s Whiskers also takes last orders at 10pm and closes at half past, which makes it a first drink and never a last one. The American Bar at The Savoy runs midday to midnight Monday to Saturday and midday to 10pm on Sunday.
Is there a dress code for London cocktail bars?
At the hotel bars, yes, and they publish it. Dukes asks for smart casual and excludes sportswear, shorts and T-shirts, though a short sleeved collared shirt is allowed. The American Bar at The Savoy sets no formal dress code but asks guests to dress elegantly and does not permit sports jerseys. The independent bars generally set none at all.
Which London bar opens earliest?
The American Bar at The Savoy, at midday, which almost nobody expects of a room with that reputation and which is the best hour to actually see it. Most of the others open at four or five in the afternoon. Scarfes Bar in the Rosewood opens at four, and you do not need to be staying at the hotel to drink there.
Written by Robert J Wills, no. 11 in the guide.
Last checked 28 September 2026 against the venues' own published information. Nobody pays to appear here and we take no bookings.
